China airs documentary proving military university is hacking U.S. targets

For a long time now there has been suspicion that China is a hotbed of hacking activity either endorsed or ignored by the government and targeting foreign individuals, companies, and even governments.

The Chinese government has always denied this, but high-profile pull outs such as that threatened by Google last year, demonstrate there is definitely something going on, and now we have proof hacking tools are being developed and attacks carried out at official institutions in the country.

In July, a documentary full of military propaganda was aired on TV across China. The footage happened to contain proof that a Chinese military university is using hacking software it has developed along with compromised U.S. IP addresses to target dissident groups.

The damning footage only lasts for 6 seconds, but that’s all we need to see the evidence. The screen you see above taken from the documentary shows a piece of software developed at the Electrical Engineering University of China’s People’s Liberation Army. The compromised IP being used is 138.26.72.17, which belongs to the University of Alabama in Birmingham.

With the IP selected the attack target is selected from a drop-down list. In this case it is Minghui.org which belongs to the Falun Gong spiritual discipline. Due to its size and independence the communist Chinese government viewed Falun Gong as a threat and banned it in the late 90s. Now it seems, they are remotely attempting to wipe it out completely if they can.

With the IP ready to use, and the target selected, the bottom left button is pressed in the video and the attack starts.

By including the footage by mistake or otherwise, it forms clear proof that at least one university in China is actively developing hacking tool and targeting overseas locations. The fact that this university is directly funded by the People’s Liberation Army either means they aren’t keeping an eye on what students are doing, or this is encouraged. The fact the footage was recorded and put in an official documentary suggests the latter.

Now all that remains is for China to explain these very telling 6 seconds. I can’t wait to hear the reasoning.

The “gotcha” is that the official government stance is that it’s untrue and insulting for western governments and corporations to accuse parts of the Chinese government of sponsoring hacking in some form or another. This would directly counter that. If it’s true, which, without knowing the full story, is pretty hard to guess. Pretty much everyone knows that all governments are doing this to all other governments at all times, it’s just political brouhaha.

Private

Matt Mireles, the gotcha is plain as day in the article: this contradicts China’s denials.

Jonas

Read more at .. Epoch Times? You mean the propaganda site of a crazy sect? No thanks. Not the best info source. (No, I don’t mean that the non-democratic China is a reliable source either. Just that a crazy sect might be even worse.)

Anonymous

A government like China shouldn’t be teaching its kids how to hack. They will eventually hack your own systems when they inevitably rise up against the cro-mag Maoists running the Chinese police state…

http://blog.theepochtimes.com/1/china MPR

I am a co-author of the article. Can you point out what is not credible about The Epoch Times’ reporting here? We simply reported on the existence of this video, explained it, made some translations, got some comment, and made it public. What is not reliable about that?

http://blog.theepochtimes.com/1/china MPR

Please see my note to Jonas below. The Epoch Times does not have any formal affiliation with the Falun Gong spiritual practice. We are also not anti-China, or violently anything. I’m a great fan of China and have spent years studying the language and culture. The Chinese Communist Party, however, is not China–clearly we are just reporting truthfully on the activities of the Chinese Communist Party. Our report here is based on publicly available and verifiable facts.

Les

Epoch Times is a unreliable source. It is a well known propaganda newspaper funded by the Falun
Gong. Same thing for the New Tang TV. It’s funny how New Tang TV is
interviewing and quoting Epoch Times as source.

Les

Geek.com has some bad journalistic standard. It’s picking up a propaganda piece from the unreliable Epoch Times.

Les

It’s your editorializing the “news” piece that makes you a unreliable source.

http://blog.theepochtimes.com/1/china MPR

How was the news here editorialised?

http://blog.theepochtimes.com/1/china MPR

You did not respond to any of my questions. But your first sentence sums up the extent of your engagement. Alas.

John Davis

“Epoch not reliable! Why you keep posting! You no post no more! We tell you stop! Epoch no good!”

To summarize half the posts here, all being made from China’s well known 50 cent Army of propaganda posters.

As for me, I say carry on.

http://blog.theepochtimes.com/1/china MPR

Haha; refreshing humor.

Anonymous

For the amount that I pay in taxes, the NSA and CIA had better be hacking somebody. I have no problem with Chinese tax payers requiring the same thing.

Anonymous

All ive heard about is a video showing a screen with some options and ip addresses. Its not exactly ‘evidence’. Last time i played a game gunfights didnt break out in real life.

Anon

The Epoch Times is branded, as the FG (i am in China can’t type it out or I might get messed with) has been as well, as insane. I remember in 2000 in China when universities across China had the following banner posted everywhere:

“The FG is an international anti-government tool.”

If you think the Chinese are not hacking into anything they can, then you are a fool. The Chinese government absolutely supports and benefits from hacking into foreign military, diplomatic and business related sites. They benefit as much as the US benefits from spy planes buzzing the coasts of other countries and from whatever having the NSA and CIA are up to.

Attacking the messenger is basically wagging the dog, so stop it and address the actual issue: governments hacking each other.

golfly

A fake one. Anyone really know China should know the official Chinese name of “falun gong” in China mainland is “evil cults”.
If one day Obama say something like “Gaddafi The Great”, I would believe this picture is not forged by “falun gong” them self.

Anonymous

The so-called hacking tool in the news just show us distributed denial-of-service attack. I don’t think this news is valuable to us. The software in the picture is not as powerful as media said.

First of all, this tool can’t achieve a DDoS. A DDoS needs thousands computers that controlled by attackers. Second, minghui.org does not have the ip 130.26.72.17 as listed in the video. Maybe the tool’s version is too old, it’s useless for attacking minghui.org. The title of the software is “People’s Liberation Army Institute of Electronic Engineering”. That is a Chinese college and the website is http://www.eei.edu.cn/ . So I have doubts whether it’s a tool for cyberattack or just a teaching tools.